z

Young Writers Society


E - Everyone

good day / bad day

by Starve


Left aligned lines make up the good day poem, right aligned make up the bad day poem and centre aligned are part of both good day and bad day poems. Gomenasai.

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Note — I still appreciate all feedback though edits might be a bit slow in coming xD

I wrote this for the Squills prompt about things being "just out of reach", with the out of reach thing being the good day, and every ordinary day is similar to bad day.


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Fri Feb 14, 2020 5:00 am
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Aley wrote a review...



Yo!

Sorry for the late review but you requested it and I'm giving it! Since it's been a while I'm going to give a general style critique.

First up, The good. I really like that you're exploring style and I like that you've got a sense of self with what words you're picking and putting together. The right side definitely caught more of my attention than the right because of the word-choice and drama in the poem.

I do think you're being a bit wordy here when it comes to the poem's heart though. For instance "I wake up to silent anxiety turning to deafening dread" is heavy on the adjectives and while that can be really strong, it just sounds wordy when silent anxiety is basically just saying anxiety and you could put in a metaphor here like "stove-on trauma" or something more creative than "silent" and "deafening". I have literally had deafening dread where I'm so scared or petrified of something that I literally tuned out every noise around me. That does happen, so it is a literal translation of an event to the written word, but I'm not sure that's the level of dread that this person woke up to.

I also feel like you need to swing the pendulum back here and try writing simpler styles rather than this doubled line. This should be written as you would naturally read it out loud. While poetry should be a visual art, it should originate in the verbal arts, like a song, and I honestly don't know how this would sing aside from two people singing it at the same time and that would be quite the cacophony of noise. Yes, it will be long, but doubling up like this confuses me as a reader about what your intent was.

So, overall, I think it's time for you to try some structured poetry and play with things like pantoum and palindromes. You'd probably enjoy the way that they roll among themselves and it would give you a necessity for wordiness or a hard block to chop the wordiness down. In other words, I'd like to see you hone your craft! Perhaps you have, it has been a while XD

See you around!
Aley.




Starve says...


Thanks a lot for the review Aley!

This is definitely my most "out there" work, and I think I wanted this to be read in whichever way the reader saw fit, but definitely not read out loud.

Why do you say that poetry should originate in thhe verbal arts?

I am trying structured poetry more now, I just tried my hand at a villanelle so I agree mostly with you!



Aley says...


I say poetry should originate in the verbal arts because that's how poetry was created ^^ Originally poetry was written only to be read aloud by the author or orator of a town before literacy was a thing among the common folk. Today, poetry is mostly heard by the populous in songs, if you would call that poetry, so it still has a strong tie to the verbal word. Also, the only "proper" way to read a poem is aloud to hear the syncopation, the tone, the internal rhyme and a lot of the poetic devices. Everything's based in sound, so it has to be able to be read aloud.

I mean, today, with how text-heavy people can be, that's dying away for internet people, more people can read verbally in their heads, but that's why "proper" is in quotes. It's proper in terms of the study of poetry.



Starve says...


hmm makes sense



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Fri Nov 09, 2018 7:11 am
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alliyah wrote a review...



Hi Traves! Oddly enough this reminded me of one of my poems that I wrote years ago (which was a much more simplistic version of this two-sided day thing) but also played a bit with formatting so I'm going to link it for you: Two Sides

So as far as interpretation- you give it to us in the author's note, I'd consider actually putting the note at the bottom if you get a chance, to let the reader have a chance to read it as it is without getting to the note first.

But yes, I interpreted this as two voices 1 on a good day waking up, and 1 resting on a bad day, and when combined we get a sort of back and forth idea of a day with ups and downs. It creates a neat effect because you can read it in so many different ways. Based on the Butterfly Effect note in the 2nd to last stanza I think that this is also showing how one little part of your day, like the start of your day can have an enormous impact on the rest of your day, outlook, and life.

Some interpretive thoughts I had when reading, were I'm not sure if I'm suppose to read some of the negative happenings as "hyperbolic" or if it's really as bad as the speaker makes it out to be. For some reason I didn't find the "right-side" speaker to be very like-able, I think because I interpreted them as being over-dramatic and complaining - so I think you need to make their conflict sound a bit more authentic perhaps, or tone it down. I also had trouble deciphering the last two stanzas - I think that one could actually interpret sleep as death in the poem, and question whether the left side is taking their life or just going to bed. And on the right side, I think it's tackling a little too much - "last minute dashes and windswept eyelids my fruits" - is just a super odd line! "Eyelids as fruits" is especially odd.

My favorite stanza is probably the 2nd one on the left - I feel like here the emotions and sentiments are the most straightforward, and the metaphors you use are very clear as well.

My main critique is that some of the lines get quite wordy - there's a lot to work through to get to the meet of the poem. You've got some really deep philosophical questions and thoughts here, but they get buried in some ways by how much text is surrounding them.

I think it'd be an interesting exercise to re-write this without the rhyme scheme and see if it frees you up to be more concise and colorful in your images and language.

That being said, I do actually like that you went for a rhyme scheme in this, because the poem is already ambitious with the formatting and the rhyme scheme not only helps the flow, but connects the two halves into a single piece.

Overall, I think this concept is just seriously neat in general - and you're doing some cool stuff in this poem - asking big questions and painting an emotionally and mentally rich scenario - I think the actual flow of the poem is going to be the biggest challenge especially with this formatting, but making the poem a bit more straightforward and concise I think will help.

Let me know if you have any questions about my review, or something you wanted a comment on that I didn't cover. :)

Thanks for sharing your poetry Traves, I look forward to your next poem!

~alliyah




Starve says...


Thanks for the review!
I read your old poem (which is good), and initially I was gonna write this in that way, with alternating lines, but I decided to push the formatting experiment all the way.

The right hand part could be taken to be hyperbolic, though I was going for the dramatic effect. The reason was the cognitive bias that humans have where the more urgent a thing is, more important it may seem, and on falling below our own expectations for it, we feel really bad though in hindsight it might not be that devastating at all.And since we feel bad in the moment, we turn to instant gratification or escapism often, although there is no crisis. It's somewhat a variation of what is called hyperbolic discounting technically , and I was trying to capture the feelings side of it.
I agree that this poem was a hit and miss kinda case for this, and I agree with most of your criticism, I just wanted to get a bit more direction for editing.

I did not think even once though that the left side might be committing suicide. Could you explain why you thought that so I might remove the vagueness?
Windswept eyelids felt unfamiliar, I wanted to say that fluttering/drooping eyelids are the fruits I get for not doing my labour on time, and I was waiting for criticism before editing.

I might re write this without the rhyme scheme, although it might not reduce the wordiness a lot xD

I'll let you know when I edit this.



alliyah says...


Thanks!

Your explanation helps a bit in my understanding of the piece! The portion I thought could be interpreted as a bit suicidal - is the lower left stanza "I did what I told myself I would always do"(they'd been considering this for their life-time) "Called back home, wrote a little poem" (saying goodbyes, and writing out a final note) and "kissed the moon goodnight" (an allusion to death) -- that really might just be reading into the escapism themes though. Especially since the final line, doesn't exactly support that reading.

And the two-step metaphor of fruits to eyelids just conjures an odd image for me - like rather than putting eyes closing -> eyelids -> fruit -> fruit of labor -> deserved end of the day. My train of thought goes eyelids -> fruits -> apples???



Starve says...


Alright!



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Thu Nov 08, 2018 5:10 am
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DauntlessDagger says...



Wow, I definitely relate! This was very good, and I love the way you styled it.




Starve says...


Thanks a lot man.



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Sun Nov 04, 2018 12:35 pm
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sophies36 says...



Hi sophie here to review!
~
First sections!-this really captures the feelings of getting out of bed! I remember and feel both sides! It’s so relatable and that just makes it better. The vocabulary is amazing so congrats!
~
Second sections!-did I mention the rhyme scheme yet? I haven’t? Well it’s amazing! I love it and it contributes to the story by the fact that both sides have the same ending that shows they are so different but in the same world.
~
Third sections!-this section really captures day to day mood. Treading onwards through the day just to get to night. It really means a lot. The nap part is very real and the dread afterwards mean a lot.
~
Fourth section!- I love how I can feel the anger and sadness in the second one. The rhyme scheme again is soooooooo good. I love how this ends with the happiness and sadness at the same time.
~
Overall!- I really like this and enjoyed reading this. It made me wonder what kind of day I’m having? Is it the left or the right? Good job and write on!




Starve says...


Thanks for the great review @sophies36 !
I'm glad you found it relatable.



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Sun Nov 04, 2018 12:33 pm
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sophies36 wrote a review...



Hi sophie here to review!
~
First sections!-this really captures the feelings of getting out of bed! I remember and feel both sides! It’s so relatable and that just makes it better. The vocabulary is amazing so congrats!
~
Second sections!-did I mention the rhyme scheme yet? I haven’t? Well it’s amazing! I love it and it contributes to the story by the fact that both sides have the same ending that shows they are so different but in the same world.
~
Third sections!-this section really captures day to day mood. Treading onwards through the day just to get to night. It really means a lot. The nap part is very real and the dread afterwards mean a lot.
~
Fourth section!- I love how I can feel the anger and sadness in the second one. The rhyme scheme again is soooooooo good. I love how this ends with the happiness and sadness at the same time.
~
Overall!- I really like this and enjoyed reading this. It made me wonder what kind of day I’m having? Is it the left or the right? Good job and write on!




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Sun Nov 04, 2018 9:36 am
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FlamingPhoenix wrote a review...



Hi Shikora here.

I don't really have anything bad to say about this poem...so I felt like giving you a nice review because I think you did really well with the formation and how you lay it out. It's nice to know that you tried something knew. I liked how you told us about two days but at the same time. There is no way I could ever do that. I couldn't find any spelling mistakes which I think is really good it just makes your poem even better, and I couldn't see anything wrong with your grammar, but that could be because I'm not very good with that.
When I saw the name to this poem it drew me in right away. It peeked my interest right from the start, and when I saw the name to your poem it got me wondering what it meant.
The other thing I really liked was all the emotion you put into every line. I'm not sure if that was just me who sees that, but anyway I could feel the way they felt with how their day went.
Please keep up the good work. I really liked reading this poem. Never stop writing and have a great day/night.

Your friend
Shikora. :D




Starve says...


Thank you @Shikora !
And of course you can write something like this or probably even better.





Your welcome.
I might give it a try when I have time.




You wanna be a writer? You don't know how or when? Find a quiet place, use a humble pen.
— Paul Simon